Comment

Ilsington is a parish on the eastern edge of Dartmoor.1 The preparatory sketch on which this must have been based, made on 24 August 1773, has been lost. Richard Polwhele mentions this tree as one of the most remarkable oaks in the county:

In the parish of Ilsington, on Staple-hill, belonging to Lord Clifford, is a very extraordinary oak: it hath eight different stems, evidently from one root – the largest of which is three feet four inches in diameter: the girth of the whole, taken at once, is a hundred and twenty-six feet. This tree is in the line of the hedge: and the grand trunk rises near five feet high, (about the height of the hedge) before it thus disparted into eight different stems. There are two deep and large hollows or basons about the middle of the tree, where the trunk begins to separate. This oak is extremely vigorous and flourishing; its verdure is remarkably vivid and beautiful; and it bears larger acorns, as a gentleman on the spot informed me, than any of the oaks in the neighbourhood.2

The tree was mentioned in 1838 by John Claudius Loudon, by which time it was on land owned by the Duke of Somerset. It was “of great age, and has a trunk 37ft. 6in. in circumference”.3